How would you structure a cold outreach offer for custom music production to independent artists so it doesn't sound like just another beat seller?
Cold email might not be the most effective channel for custom music production because creative industries invert the traditional business model of selling first and building second. Cold outreach to independent artists rarely hits as well as relationship building. Instead of cold emails, focus on networking and getting into the same physical and digital rooms as artists—such as attending industry events, studio sessions, and parties in music hubs like Los Angeles. In creative fields like music, direct networking functions as your primary outreach method.
No, not really. The whole idea is that you're going to want to sell services here. If you're not going to sell services, Maker School probably will not deliver the return on investment. To be honest, my whole game is that I want you to deliver a return on investment, because then you'll be likely to pay me more money over the long run — versus somebody who joins for a month or two, finds the program superficially interesting, but doesn't get a return on investment. Ultimately I'm here because I want things to work. I want them to work for you, and in working for you, I want them to work for me.
Asset‑based cold outreach generally yields a lower customer acquisition cost than plain cold‑email icebreakers. One of my favorite methods is to create a set of high‑quality assets—like an AI‑generated 30‑email sequence—where AI first builds a massive email list, then generates an outline, drafts each email, selects the best versions, and compiles them into a ready‑to‑send campaign. Because the assets are produced at near‑zero marginal cost with AI, the overall CAC drops dramatically.
The most valuable part of a lead‑gen system is its scale. In the past I had to door‑knock, walk to each business, deliver a pitch, and wait for a decision—maybe one or two minutes per prospect plus travel time, so I could only reach 50‑80 businesses a day. With cold email you can send thousands of messages in the same amount of time it takes to write one campaign, instantly multiplying your leverage. Once the email is written you can reach a million people, giving a much steeper rise‑over‑run curve than cold calling or manual outreach. After the initial setup, the results far surpass the effort of doing it yourself, especially when combined with AI personalization that makes each email feel one‑on‑one.
With no money and no audience, I’d go straight into cold outbound because I’m good at it—I’ve done door‑to‑door and learned what gets people to talk or kick you out. I’d start with Loom videos or manually written cold emails (not scalable but effective) to pitch people directly. Then I’d bootstrap: 10× the number of mailboxes, sell a simple AI service, and have clients cover costs to keep things simple and low‑cost. That’s the core approach. (After answering, I note I wasn’t going to record today but we’re doing it now, then I share my brand stats: YouTube 93,779, Instagram 127,175, daily updates channel 4,716.)